Re-inventing the Wheel:

[mikey]

Successful cross breeding and upbreeding (within a breed) require setting a specific goal.If a large,meaty animal produced for the slaughter market is your goal,decide first of all if the animals which you own can get you there.Quality breeding stock is essential,a well thought out plan is manadtory.Careless breeding is both ill advised and self defeating.Generically there are 3 types of goat breeds,meat,milk,fiber (hair),selected by mankind and nature over time to achieve a specific objective.Most native (feral) goats are small and lean out of necessity they have had to survive and thrive through natural selection and without supplementary feeds.The desire to breed quality animals is understandable..Does it make sense to breed native goats to larger framed dairy type goats.A case can be made for its dairy goat origins.The boer is currently the most visible example of selective breeding in our industry today.Dutch farmers bred British milk goats (anglo nubians) and crossbred the nubians with feral goats in Africa.Visible similarity is obvious.both boers and nubians have roman faces and long,pendulous ears.Despite years of rigorous selection for meat goat characteristics.The boer remains the best candidate amoung dairy type animals for cross breeding to produce a quality slaughter meat goat.The American Dairy Assoc. states DAIRY IS OPPOSITE OF MEAT.Dairy goats are long bodied.long legs.needed by lactating does to carry udders filled with milk.Having little meat on their frames,their sides typically sink in at their flanks.Meat goats are short legged wide and deep bodied animals.Does have tight compact udders.Being largely pasture animals dependant upon own skills to avoid predators,they are agile and skittish.The Kiko,this goat breed was created starting in 1978 in New Zealand.Feral does in New Zealand were crossed with males of dairy orgin.Saanen,Toggenberg,Anglo Nubian bucks for a minimum of 4 generations.Therefore,this breed also is substantially  dairy in foundation stock.Breeders need to become focused on both WHERE WE WANT TO GO and HOW WE PLAN TO GET THERE.Historial evidence concerning development of other species,slaughter animals indicates that a cross bred (hybrid) animal is the ultimate goal,with fullbloods of various breeds being the seed stock for meat goat production.
By: Suzanne W. Gasparotto,Goat Rancher Magazine
breeder of the Tenn. meat goat in Texas USA, (well respected breeder)

[mikey]

Where"s The Beef:
Bronc Fleming and Barney Fowler are now breeding boers with extended necks,extended necks weakens the strengh in the neck.There are no more bones in the necks of the extended neck.If there are no more bones in the neck,then where does the extension come from??Space between the bones in the neck.Now have you ever seen boer goats butting heads each other??Of coarse you have because it is a common trait with goats.If these new animals are bred to have a longer,thinner neck,will it be stronger or weaker??If you want to breed with longer necks,you should be raising giraffes.There is more additional quality meat in a good massive neck than there is in having a wider chest,and that is a fact.
By: Jack Mauldin,boer goat breeder U.S.A.